


A Single Word

by orphan_account



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, i had a hard time deciding if hilbert was still selberg in lovelace's mind or nah, i have no explanation or excuse for this, is this angst?? probably, loveberg, past loveberg, takes place sometime after ep 25
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5076433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lovelace is given Hilbert-sitting duty. She isn't thrilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Single Word

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely unbeta'd, so if you notice any glaring mistakes or inexcusable clashes with canon, let me know and I'll try to fix them.

“No.”

“What?”

“I said _no_ , Commander. I am _not_ babysitting Hilbert.”

Minkowski pressed her hand against her forehead. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re a bit short staffed. With Eiffel out of commission, we need all hands on deck if we want to leave on schedule. Even his.”

“How can you trust him? He killed my crew, he tried to do the same to yours!”

“I _don’t_ trust him. That’s why I need you here. To keep an eye on him.”

“He. _Killed._ _My. Crew_.” Lovelace said, barely-controlled anger dripping from every word. Minkowski winced.

“I know. I’m sorry. If there was any other way, that’s what we’d be doing.”

“ _You_ could watch him,” Lovelace suggested icily.

“Someone needs to take care of Eiffel, and Hera doesn’t have the hands. I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours. I still have enough energy to take care of one sick crewmember, but not enough to take on a homicidal scientist who has a track record of trying to kill me.”

 

If she wasn’t in zero-gravity, Lovelace would have paced angrily. As it was, she just kind of…floated angrily, trying to think of another way to avoid this mess.

“We could delay our departure,” she suggested, sounding for the world as if it was the hardest thing she’d ever said.

“No,” said Minkowski. “I want to get Eiffel back as soon as possible. We can’t do anything for him up here. And I’ll be dammed if I let _any_ member of my crew die up here.”

Lovelace glowered in silence. Then, even to her own surprise, she growled, “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“You…you will?” Minkowski asked, shocked.

“I can’t guarantee he’ll be in one piece when you come back. But yes. I’ll do it.”

\--

Selberg was staring out the observatory window when she arrived. (No, she reminded herself. He wasn’t Selberg anymore. Had he ever been? Was it just another name, just another cover? Had everything she’d ever know about him been a lie? Had _everything_ been a lie?)

The doctor didn’t turn his head as the door slid open.

“What am I fixing today, Commander?” he asked of the window, managing to fit a surprising amount of dry hatred into the words.

“The central wiring system,” Lovelace said. Selberg—Hilbert—whoever—jerked his gaze away from the window.

“Oh. Is you,” he said.

Lovelace didn’t answer.

“Where is Minkowski?”

“Busy. Get up. We have work to do.”

Hilbert got to his feet, an uncomfortably satisfied smirk on his face. “Don’t suppose you have key to handcuffs, do you?”

“Not on your life.”

\--

They worked in silence. It would have suited Lovelace just fine, except it was almost uncomfortable how easily they fell back into their old routine. They had worked side by side in silence so many times in the past. Working with Selberg was never like working with the rest of her crew. She'd always felt the need keep up a facade, crack jokes, make friendly. Be the cool boss. Especially around Lambert—man, that guy needed to loosen up! But with Selberg, she could drop the facade, put her head down, and get some goddamn work done, because that was exactly what he wanted to do, too.  
  
She started muttering under her breath as she connected wires and checked feedback screens. It was an old habit, one she'd picked up in Academy. She didn't mutter about the work, but about other things. Unrelated things. Usually poetry she had memorized in high school. The comfortable iterations of well-worn words helped clear her mind. Unless you knew to listen for it, it was almost impossible to hear.  
Selberg knew to listen for it.  
  
Without thinking about it, he began to recite under his breath as well. He'd never had a deep fondness for poetry, but Lovelace repeated her favorites so many times that they were stuck in his memory, too. His voice followed the cadence of hers, pausing and intoning the same places they always did.

Suddenly, she fell silent. He looked up from his work, shaken from the rhythm.  
She was staring at him, eyes narrowed and bright with anger.  
"You can't—" she began, and then cried out in pain, seizing up. Her hands had continued on their task of rewiring the circuit board even as she confronted him. But without proper attention to the task, she had accidentally connected some wires incorrectly. She was frozen to the panel with the force of the current running through her.

 Quickly, he grabbed her by the back of her uniform (careful not to touch her skin, still sparking with excess electricity) and yanked her backward.  
She went still and quiet, floating there in the middle of the hallway.  
"Lovelace?" he asked, urgency creeping into his tone. He shook her prone body.

 "Lovelace! Isabel!"  
She wasn't breathing. Frantically, he felt for her pulse. It was there, fluttering and weak, fading out to nothing for a few seconds before coming back. But it was there.  
Acting on both instinct and training, he plugged her nose, put his mouth of hers and blew air into her lungs. As he breathed for her, he drifted them both over to a wall, so he'd have something to push against when he did contractions against her chest.

  
Breath, breath.

Push, push, push, push.

Breath, breath—

  
Lovelace gasped. She sucked back a lungful of air, breathing ragged and painful.  
"Wha—?" She choked out between gasps and coughs.  
"Electrocution," the doctor supplied, keeping a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright, Isabel?"  
  
_Isabel._  
  
The single word would have stopped her heart if it hadn't already been so recently stopped. A hundred memories bombarded her at once.  
_  
"Isabel..." whispered in reverence, their lips parting for the first time. (She had smiled then, and kissed him again. "Elias," she'd returned.)_

_  
"Isabel," said in annoyance, as she interrupted his work to make sure he ate or slept._

_  
"Isabel!" In excitement when he discovered something new his studies had to offer._

_  
"Isabel," pleadingly, after their first of many fights._

_  
"Isabel," in relief, after she forgave him, in promise that he would never hurt her again._

_  
"Isabel," panicked, after he found her unconscious, arm broken in two places._

_“Isabel,” said fondly during an hour-long ramble about how much she missed her cats._

_  
"Isabel," in warning that she was being too hard on her crew._

_  
"Isabel," grieved and tired. "We lost Lambert."_

_  
"Isabel." In comfort, holding her as she cried._

_  
"Isabel?" Cautious. "Please, eat, my love.”_

  
_"Isabel." Worst of all. Even after he betrayed her. "Isabel, I love you."_  
  
She pushed herself away from him as hard as she could.  
"You don't get to call me that!" she screamed with all the breath her fragile lungs could muster. "Not anymore, not ever again!"  
"I—I am sor—"  
"No, shut up! Don't talk to me, don't look at me!"  
To his horror (and hers too), she broke down into tears.  
"You don't get to call me that anymore," she forced out. "Not after what you did. To my crew. To me. To us. You're not the man I used to love."  
  
And there was nothing for him to say. He had done terrible, unforgivable, inexcusable things. He'd hurt her, despite it being the last thing he ever wanted to do. There was nothing to say.  
  
Minkowski rounded the corner and floated to a stop.  
"What's going on?"  
Lovelace hurriedly flicked away the water droplets clinging to her cheeks and regained what she could of her composure.  
"I was careless with the wires and got a bit of a nasty shock. That's all, Commander Minkowksi."  
Minkowski, looking unconvinced, opened her mouth.  
"That's. All." Lovelace said. "But if you don't mind helping me to my quarters, I think it might be best if I rest for a while."

Minkowski hesitated. "…Sure. No problem. Just let me escort Hilbert back to the observation deck first."  
Minkowski turned away, giving Lovelace a moment to put herself together. As she lead the doctor away, he said quietly, "I am sorry, Lovelace. You do not believe it, but I am."  
  
Isabel did not reply.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: the last cpr class I took was in middle school.


End file.
